Thursday, April 17, 2008

Happy Birthday to me!

Which bandwagon are we on now?

As I said in one my earlier entries, people are prone to jump on bandwagons, and I mention the oil bandwagon. Sure enough, oil was at $115 dollars a barrel yesterday. When I was mentioning the oil, it was around $100.

I wish I would have listened to my own advice, and figured out how to trade oil futures and actually placed a trade. It's still not too late, I suspect. I wouldn't be surprised to see oil at $130 a barrel by summer.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

To circ or not to circ?

OK, I'm going to talk about a very personal issue, my penis.

When I was a baby, no one asked me, if I wanted to keep my entire penis. My circumcision was done as part of a heavily indoctrinated routine. The people, who cut foreskin, didn't think twice about it.

I know the arguments for cutting foreskin--cleanliness and protection from disease--both good arguments.

However, if someone had asked me to slice off part of my penis, I probably would have said no. I'm very partial to all of it's components. In fact, today, if you were to ask me nicely, if you could slice off a part of my penis, I would tell you to go fuck yourself, and I wouldn't think twice about it--I wouldn't care what your reason was.

Moreover, circumcision is a tradition that began thousands of years ago--before plumbing & electricity brought penises hot showers every day.

So consider this: The foreskin serves a purpose. It's there to protect and preserve the highly sensitive tip. If you've ever had chaffed nipples, you know how serious this subject is.

So, if I ever have a son. I'll wait until he's 13, and then, I'll ask him if he would like to slice off part of his penis, and I'll give him some reasons why, and I'll let him decide.

If he decides to keep his entire penis, I will simply caution him against banging random skanks--I will suggest to him, he should only bang one girl at a time. It should preferably someone he's knows well enough to know her complete medical history, and I'll suggest this girl should be someone you actually care about.

Then, I will suggest that when he baths, he cleans his entire epidermis daily, whether he needs a bath or not.

3 ways to dramatically improve fuel efficiency in the trucking industry

OK, I recently spent a few months visiting my mom in Michigan. I drove.

While driving, I was thinking about improving fuel efficiency because that's how I roll, literally.

First Way:

Drafting: I was noticing as I was driving that trucks for the most part were staggered down the highway. Not good.

Drafting can improve fuel efficiency by as much as 30%--depending on whether or not there's a headwind. Tour de France riders always ride in a line because of drafting. It's the difference between winning and losing the tour. For a trucker, it could be the difference between bankruptcy and profitability, and it's a pretty simple concept.

I conducted a simple experiment when I drove up to Michigan kind of by accident. I drafted the entire way up. I tried to get behind truckers, who were going 70 mph--they were breaking the speed limit, I wasn't. I only filled up my tank with gas 4 times.

On the way back, I didn't draft at all. I filled up my tank with gas 5 times.

It costs me $45 bucks to fill up my tank, which is about what it costs to sleep in a cheap motel.

Diesel costs $4 a gallon. (I don't know how many miles a year, or miles per gallon, but I do know, if drafting was applied, truckers would be saving a shitload of money on an annual basis--more than ten thousand dollars per trucker per year.)

You don't even need to be right up the other trucks ass either--just far enough back to where the air is still moving forward.

In today's world, where most trucks with the big trucking outfits have GPS trackers, it is possible to build a software to track trucks and give drivers, who spend time being drafted or drafting behind other trucks a bonus. The bonus would give truckers an incentive to draft. An independent trucker wouldn't need much more incentive other than the extra money in his pocket.

Second Way:

Solar Panels: Every truck on the road has a giant flat space on the roof of the trailer--approximately 1,000 sq. ft. This huge space could be converted into a very large solar panel. It could power a motor to provide a little extra push, and possibly an extra 20% gain in fuel efficiency. Or, it could power the refrigerator and other electrical components--also, improving fuel efficiency by just as much.

Third Way:

Improved Aerodynamics: The back of every truck has a big flat space. It's quite possibly the least aerodynamic design you could have. It might as well be a freakin parachute. If that flat space was converted to a cone shape, trucks would get possibly 10 to 20% more fuel efficiency.

Consider the numbers:

Well, OK, let's think about some numbers. 20% is a big deal. 30% is an even bigger deal. 40% is fucking huge. Boeing started putting flipped up wing tips on jets because that little flip created better aerodynamics and translated into $10's of millions of dollars each year in fuel savings for the airlines.

How much money is being wasted in the trucking industry by neglecting a few simple things? I would bet it's in the billions.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

"No junk, No soul" -Brian Griffin

"No Junk, No Soul" was Brian Griffin's comment as he was pontificating the heroin fueled jazz periods of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, which for a dog, is a pretty profound statement, if you think about it.

I'm only reminded by the statement as I lay here trying to sleep listening to Miles Davis.

I'm in a melancholy mood-thinking of snugglepants and other sweet memories.

I love life.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

iphone update

On the whole, I'm extremely happy with the iphone.

I use it constantly--every single feature many times.

In the next edition, I would hope it has louder speakers, better headset, but honestly, I can't complain. I love it. It's the perfect phone design.

I love apple. I'll even watch their company meetings online.

I think the future of the iphone is great. In the latest company meeting, they unveiled a new icon, which is going to be released soon--the applications icon. It releases in June along with the next generation of iphone.

With the applications icon, you'll be able to download various work related aps. Doctors will have a new tool that is simply amazing. It's the epocrety (sp) software, but it's on the iphone. I'm not explaining how works, but I will say, it kicks some serious ass.

Email on the iphone is getting a massive upgrade. The calender is too.

In all, the iphone is as monumental as the personal computer was.

If you are looking for an investment, I'd say buy stock in apple-pure and simple.

Here's why:

The applications icon and the iphone itself.

Think about it.

You already have an ultra-powerful handheld broadband computer with untapped unlimited applications. All that's left are the creative minds adding even more tools to an already amazing tool at your fingertips. It's already great, but it's just going to get better.

It's exciting.

Did Al Gore pull one over on us?

Everyone loves a good end of the world story, me especially.

Bear in mind, this is my own theory.

I learned something from a certain friend, who has a secret herb garden growing in his closet--plants love CO2. It's as though CO2 acts as a plant steroid. The more sunlight, nutrients, and CO2 they get, the more they photosynthesize, the faster they grow, the happier the plant.

So, Al Gore made his An Inconvenient Truth documentary about the catastrophic effects we're creating from all the CO2 emissions, but nowhere in his documentary was there anything mentioned about how much plants love CO2. Nowhere, in his documentary did he say how the plant will react to more CO2 in the environment. The assumption was that plants would be overwhelmed with too much CO2 and would not be able to absorb more of it, and CO2 would just keep stacking up.

I find it interesting that everyone just bought this theory without really looking too far beyond it. It seems highly plausible that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, but if plants are just passively absorbing as much CO2 as what comes there way, maybe we ought not start building the arcs just yet.

Something else to consider: The sun isn't like a thermostat where it is set at a specific temperature. It's a giant fusion reactor that ebbs and flows. A few scientists have said the sun has been going through a more active period, and that could be one the reasons things have been melting.

Anyway, I'm learning to take the things scientists a little less seriously.

And, I'm also thinking, we should start considering that fertilizing vast areas so that plants can process more CO2 more readily might be a good idea.

How you remember me is not how I am today.

Remember that.